War Bonds
by T. Z. Townshend
Summary: In time, Sherlock Holmes would come to believe that the only thing truly good that had come out of his being drafted and put in the RAF was meeting Molly Hooper. WW2 AU.
1. Call to Arms

**A/N: I've had this sitting on my computer for awhile and since Benedict Cumberbatch and Loo Brealey did that letter reading at the Hay Festival, I've felt a responsibility to get this chapter done an published. By the way, a massive thank you to the lovely ladies who encouraged me to do this AU idea all those months ago in the Sherlolly Chat. I hope this meets your expectations.**

**WARNING: This chapter contains a warfare sequence.**

Chapter 1: Call to Arms

He knew it was coming the moment Germany took the Sudetenland. He couldn't resist giving people that 'I told you so' look on September 3rd, 1939 (a date that would be burned in his memory forever). He'd been planning to go off to London and start a career as a consulting detective when it happened. Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard had already agreed to let him in on cases. That was dashed when Lestrade joined the Royal Air Force.

Even with everyone he knew getting involved in the fight, Sherlock Holmes was determined to stay out of it. His brother, Mycroft, a member of the British government, wanted desperately for him to enlist.

"Britain doesn't need detectives right now, Sherlock. It needs soldiers, pilots, and seamen," he'd said condescendingly to his nineteen year old little brother that Christmas. The boy rolled his eyes and crossed his outstretched legs in irritation.

"I'm not a warrior, brother. I don't want to fight. I don't want honor or glory or any of that nonsense."

"Do you want people to think you're a coward?"

"I don't care what people think!" Sherlock snapped, his temper rattled. "People can think me a coward all they like, but it doesn't make them right."

"If you won't think of yourself, think of our parents. Think of what a disgrace it would be for them to have a coward for a son," Mycroft replied coolly. The younger Holmes glared furiously back, his body suddenly going very still.

"This isn't about them. They don't want me to go if I don't have to. No, this is about you and how you look to your superiors." His voice was perfectly calm, but it somehow seemed to convey an anger even greater than shouting ever could. Abruptly, he stood up from his chair. "If you want me enlisted so badly, why don't you go have my draft number called?" As he stormed out of the room, he didn't think Mycroft would actually do it, but he did.

Two days before his twentieth birthday, Sherlock was called to fight. He shipped off to London and they put him in the RAF as a group captain under Air Commodore Lestrade (there came certain advantages to being a brilliant posh kid with a brother in the government). At first, they had extreme difficulty getting him to be disciplined, but eventually they did persuade him to salute and address superiors as 'sir' (except for Lestrade, but the man let it slide). Even then, he did it with an underlying layer of sarcasm. Many under his command grew fond of him, but nearly everyone else came to dislike him. They hated his cheekiness, his seeming ability to know everything about someone just by looking at them, and how he managed to turn the head of almost every woman he passed while in his formal uniform.

"Lookin' sharp, sir!" a warrant officer called to him on his way off base. He smirked, but didn't look around as he answered.

"Carry on, Wiggins."

He was off to meet his mother at a restaurant for what could potentially be his last proper dinner. In her letter, she'd promised that Mycroft wouldn't be there, which was her way of begging him to come see her before they told him to fly somewhere and get shot at. She looked rather stunned when she first laid eyes on Sherlock in his uniform. She seemed quite affronted that they'd forced him to cut and tame his black curls. Instead of the unruly mop he'd sported since he was small, they'd fixed him with a prim and proper side part and now he looked unrecognizable from the back.

"For goodness sake, mother. Will you stop going on about the hair? It'll go back the way it was when the war is over," Sherlock grumbled after swallowing a bit of potato. His mother stared at him for a moment and seemed to grow quite sad. He could tell she was thinking about the 'if'. He didn't like thinking about the if. "I know how to fly a plane and shoot things, mother. I'll be fine." This did very little to console the woman and the rest of their meal was given a gloomy atmosphere. When it was time to say goodbye, she kissed him on the cheek and gave him a tight hug right there in the posh restaurant for everyone to see. He hadn't expected it. This wasn't his mother's typical behaviour. Perhaps the idea that her dear Sherlock, who was really still only a boy, was going off to fight and might be killed was affecting her more deeply than she was letting on.

"Promise you'll write," she ordered when he held open the door to her cab for her.

"Of course. Goodbye, mother." He wasn't usually a sentimental person, but closing that door felt like the end of something significant. He watched her cab go, still with that odd feeling inside him, and stepped back from the curb...to bump right into a young woman carrying her shopping. She was so small and her center of gravity was so altered by the things she carried that she fell right over. Immediately, he helped her to her feet and began picking up the things that had spilled from her bags. He paused when his hand closed around a pair of books. One was on chemistry and the other on anatomy. His keen gaze turned to look at the young woman more closely as he stood to hand her her books.

"Sorry! I should've- you don't need to- oh!" she babbled and then gasped as she caught sight of Sherlock's face.

"You're a nurse," he commented. For a moment she just gazed back at him in astonishment and awe. Slowly, she took the books he held out to her and tucked a loose brown lock behind her ear.

"I-I am. And y-you're a pilot. A...a group captain. B-but that's...that's obvious. How do you know I'm a nurse?" the young woman stuttered and Sherlock couldn't help but smirk.

"I can tell by your books and your hair and the way you hold yourself." The young woman gaped back at him, thoroughly impressed and enraptured. That wasn't the reaction he was expecting. He was expecting a slap hard across the face and a few angry words before she went off in a huff, but that wasn't what happened.

"That's...amazing." Sherlock froze. This was _definitely_ not what he was anticipating.

"You think so?"

"Why wouldn't I?" The question produced an entirely unfamiliar sensation in Sherlock's stomach and caused his response to be impulsive.

"My name is Sherlock Holmes," he told her with a curt bow of the head (he couldn't shake her had as hers were both full).

"Molly Hooper. Pleased to meet you."

"Aren't you going to ask how your books, hair, and posture tell me that you're a nurse?"

"Do most people ask when know who they are just by looking?"

"Yes and then they leave angrily."

"I'm afraid I must disappoint you there, Group Captain Holmes. I can see how you figured me out," Molly replied with a soft giggle. "I guess I'm not most people. I've...I've always been strange." She was clearly embarrassed by this and Sherlock surmised that she had been bullied as a child.

"Not strange. Just different." He gave her a proper smile now and it made Molly's knees go wobbly. He was quite possibly the most charming man she'd ever had the pleasure of meeting. "It's late and you're carrying things. I'll walk you home."

"Oh no, it's fine, really. You don't have to."

"My mother would be very cross indeed if she learnt that I let a young woman walk home alone, especially at night, especially a nurse. I insist." He wasn't just doing what he'd been taught to do. He wanted to learn more about this unusual person. She clearly wasn't just a nurse. The chemistry book she had was one he also owned, one that wasn't necessarily geared towards pharmaceutical applications. Obviously she had greater scientific aspirations than those of a typical nurse. The idea that he'd found a kindred spirit excited him and made him eager to help her.

"Oh...alright then." Molly responded nervously. He continued to smile as the began walking in what Sherlock assumed was the direction of her home.

"You are a scientific woman, are you not, Ms. Hooper?"

"I-I suppose so...I mean, yes, yes, I am."

"What is your area of interest?"

"Er, pathology, mostly. Forensic pathology." Sherlock's blue eyes lit up at this. How wonderful that he should by chance meet someone whose personality and interests aligned so complimentarily to his own. How cruel that he should have so little time to speak with her.

"Death interests you?" he asked, being sure to sound pleasant enough not to give her impression that she'd put him off. She gave him a shy nod in reply. "Then perhaps it would please you to hear that before the war, I was going to become a detective."

"Oh, that's lovely! I'd bet everything I have that you'd be brilliant at it." There it was, that fluttering feeling in his stomach again. He couldn't decide whether it was pleasant or horrid, all he knew was that Molly Hooper thought he was brilliant. Not a wanker. Not a freak. And they'd only just met. Perhaps he was fooling himself. Perhaps she'd learn to hate him if she got to know him better. For those reasons, it was probably best that their meeting was to be so short.

He brought her to the door of her flat and she handed him one of her bags so she could unlock the door.

"Wait here a moment," she requested as she went inside. He looked in curiously, trying to learn more about her. This wasn't her flat. She wouldn't be able afford it on her own. She wasn't married; there was no ring on her finger. All signs pointed to father. Before he could deduce anything else, Molly reappeared and took her other bag off his hands. "Thank you, sir. You've been very kind to me."

"It was no trouble. It's not often I encounter a like minded individual," Sherlock replied casually. Molly stood on her tiptoes to press a tender kiss to his cheek.

"Good luck, Group Captain Holmes. I hope we meet again someday," Molly told the young man and he understood that the subtext of her words was 'I hope with all my heart that you aren't killed'. That struck him on a deep level that no one had been able to even touch for a very long time. It excited and terrified him simultaneously.

"Goodbye, Ms. Hooper. I will remember you." With a last tip of his hat, he dashed out of the building as quickly as possible so as not to give himself a moment to change his mind, because a part of him wanted to go inside that young woman's home and sit close to her all through the night, discussing everything from crime to music while he examined her small hands. He supposed that was near his equivalent to wanting to sleep with someone. He couldn't do it. They were both better off as they were, so he left with nothing but the memory of her locked away in a corner of his vast mind.

* * *

Now it just seemed like routine, sliding into the cockpit of his Spitfire. He didn't really think about the fact that he might be going to his death at this point. It was just another day, just another mission. Today it was Operation Dynamo. They were sending him off to Dunkirk to defend the sea and ground forces there. When it got right down to it, it didn't matter to him what they were ordering him to attack or defend. He just did his duty knowing that it brought the war one step closer to an end. Fear stopped registering with him once he'd flown a few missions. There was nothing but the thrill of the dogfight, airplanes performing a deadly dance through the sky. He'd locked everything else out in his mind. He didn't need anything else. Wouldn't Mycroft be so proud? This Sherlock was his creation, after all. His creation which now flew to the shores of France, to Dunkirk, to be the ultra efficient killing machine they'd made of him.

They didn't tell Sherlock that it was going to be hell. Everything was fire and smoke and death. He didn't let it get to him. He flew on and trained his guns on every Bf 109 that dared challenge him. He could feel the blood rushing through his veins as he pulled up in time to score his fifth hit. The Luftwaffe plane caught fire and dived through a cloud of billowing black smoke to plant itself rather destructively in the ground below. The men would start calling him an ace after this, but it didn't matter to him. He didn't even think about it. He only searched for another enemy to engage. Before he could target another unfortunate Bf 109 pilot to dance with, he suddenly found himself hit. He'd taken fire from an unforeseen direction. There was scarcely any time for him to react before he'd lost control of his Spitfire and was hurling in a dizzying spiral towards the beach.

The next thing Sherlock knew, he was barely conscious and he could feel himself being lifted and dragged. There came a sudden jerking motion and a cry of anguish, but Sherlock was carried on. Vaguely, he registered the sounds of men shouting, various explosions, and gunfire. Shapes and colors swam before his eyes before he completely passed out.

* * *

At first, when they brought him in, she thought she was going to be horribly sick, but she calmed herself and did her job. He wasn't dying on her watch.

They cleaned him up and treated his wounds and broken limbs. He had been extremely lucky and hadn't sustained any permanent injuries.

When her shift was over, she stayed and sat at his bedside, gazing at his haunted features.

"You know him?" one of her fellow nurses, Mary Morstan, asked.

"I met him once a few months ago. I've been thinking about him every day since," she answered, reaching out to brush an errant curl from his eyes. He didn't look like the boy she'd remembered. There were dark circles around his eyes and a pale clamminess to his skin. It was as if he'd become a ghost.

"I'm not shocked. I wouldn't forget a face like that in a hurry either." Mary smiled cheekily.

"He was very sweet to me."

"I'll bet he was," Mary responded with a wink and Molly blushed furiously.

"I-It wasn't like that!" she blurted out, although there was no denying that part of her wished it had been like that. Sherlock Holmes was the first man to ever take notice of her for her brain instead of her body and as a result, she was even more attracted to him than she otherwise would be. "I'd have married him on the spot if he'd asked me, though," she confessed quietly. Mary gaped at her.

"Molly Hooper, I'm surprised at you. You've always been such a sensible girl. I'd have thought you'd never let yourself get swept off your feet like that. What makes Group Captain Sherlock Holmes so special?" Mary was being a lot more serious now. She was rather sensitive to the changes in behaviour in other people. When Molly had pointed this out, Mary had told her that one needed to pay attention to those sorts of things, especially as a nurse in war time. It could save a patient's life, she said.

"He didn't think I was strange for studying pathology," Molly answered sheepishly. Mary continued to stare at her for a long moment, making the brunette nurse uneasy.

"He's one in a million, Molly. Ask him to marry you the moment he wakes up."

"_Mary._"

"I'm serious. You can't let this one just pass you by."

"He barely even knows me, Mary. Even if I asked him, he'd say no." Molly might be sweet on Sherlock Holmes, but she was a realist. "Besides, it's hardly fair to spring a proposal on him when he's just woken up in hospital after a terrible battle." She scanned her eyes over his body again, feeling her heart ache at all the bandages and casts. None of it was permanent. She knew that, but seeing him like this was still heartbreaking.

"Let him get to know you then. I can make sure they don't take him off your list or anything." Mary was dead serious. Molly could see it in her blue eyes and started to get a little bit teary at the knowledge that she had such a great friend.

"Thanks, Mary."

"You're welcome, dear. I just want you to be happy and any bloke who likes women who love science is well worth the effort." This brought a grin to Molly's face and she watched silently as her friend finished her shift by checking up on the man in the next bed over, who had apparently been the one to drag Group Captain Holmes from the wreck of his plane. He'd taken a bullet to the shoulder and lost a lot of blood. "This one's a looker, isn't he? Captain John Watson's his name. He's a medic. Risked life and limb to save your beau." The look Mary got from her colleague at this comment made her laugh again. "I'm allowed to set my sights on someone, aren't I? Goodnight, Molly."

"Night, Mary." Molly watch her friend go before turning her attention to the pilot in the bed beside her. She couldn't help but wonder if it wasn't foolish to hope for anything between them. Maybe it was destiny that had brought him back to her.

**A/N: There you are. I'll try to get another chapter up as soon as possible. I hope you like it.**


	2. Reset

**A/N: I'm sorry that this took so long. Such is life when you've got so many WIPs going at once. I hope this is worth the wait.**

**WARNING: This chapter contains depression and war related trauma as well as a bit of violence.**

Chapter 2: Reset

Sherlock eased his eyes open and blinked a few times to get rid of the blurriness in his vision. His whole body felt as if it were made of lead and everything ached. It registered vaguely in his mind that he was in hospital and that there was someone there with him.

"Hello, group captain. How are you feeling?" That voice was eerily familiar and after a moment he remembered Molly Hooper. She was there before his very eyes and he could hardly believe it.

"Am I dead?" he asked, his voice coming out raspy and slurred. If he was seeing Molly Hooper, he was either in some kind of afterlife or he was hallucinating. There was no way that he could have just happened to have landed himself in the hospital where she worked.

"No," she replied with a giggle. "You are on the tail end of some painkillers, though."

"Mm, that explains it..."

"Explains what?"

"Why you're here, of course." The woman frowned at him, her nose scrunching a little. For some reason, that made him want to smile. "I suppose as far as hallucinations go, this is rather...mild." He'd meant to say nice, but even his sluggish mind could reason that nice wasn't generally something one should call a hallucination.

"Sir, you're not hallucinating. I'm actually here. I'm your nurse." Sherlock didn't respond to this for a long while, instead choosing to let his mind clear a little more before he determined her reality for himself. Steadily, the fog in his head lifted and the dull ache of his body became more noticeable. He could see that he was covered in bandages and his left arm and leg were in casts. With the exertion of considerable effort, he was able to reach out with his right hand and touch Nurse Hooper's hip. She was solid and therefore real. She almost jumped at his touch and her already large brown eyes went as wide as saucers. Instead of moving out of his reach, though, she took his hand and placed it at his side. He noted that her fingers were small, thin, and rather cold against his own. "How are you feeling?" she repeated with a small smile.

"Like I crashed a plane," he responded with a cheeky smirk, but once he really thought about what had happened, his expression faded into one of blank eyed, abject discomfort. "No...that's not quite right..." He spoke more to himself than to the nurse, but she had her full attention on him. "Friendly fire." The words came out firmer and clearer than anything else he'd said thus far. Nurse Hooper seemed shocked and horrified and rightly so.

"You...you were shot down by one of ours? Are you sure?" she asked, her voice almost a whisper as she sat down on the edge of his bed and leaned closer to him.

"Yes," he answered solemnly. There was no other possible explanation. He remembered clearly having his eyes peeled for enemy aircraft in every direction from which they might come at him. He'd taken a hit from behind, where his fellow RAF pilots had been.

"Oh my God. We have to tell someone." On reflex, Sherlock's hand shot out to close tightly on Nurse Hooper's thin wrist.

"No," he said sternly, ignoring the shooting fire of pain in his arm as he constricted his grip. She gave him a bewildered, questioning look in return. "It's far too risky." Anyone who was capable of gunning him down was worth being cautious about. If his superiors learnt that an RAF pilot was responsible for his crash, there would be inquiries and it wouldn't take long for the guilty party to realize he hadn't been killed, which would result in not only the covering of their tracks but the high possibility that they'd come to finish the job. Fortunately, Nurse Hooper seemed to understand this and gave him a little nod. He released her wrist from his grasp and let out a heavy, wheezing sigh.

"Do you want more morphine?"

"No, but I'd like to write a letter." Hooper smiled at him again and happily scrounged up a pen and paper for him. Using his leg cast as a writing surface, he scribbled in large lettering: 'Dear Mycroft, HAPPY NOW?' and then promptly handed the paper back to his nurse. "Please address that to Mycroft Holmes at the Diogenes Club in London and send it on its merry way," he told her, paying no mind to her scowl. Clearly she didn't approve of wasting paper and the time of postal workers to say something so short and rude, but he knew she would send it for him anyway.

Sherlock lay there in silence for a long time, thinking and barely even noticing Hooper's activities. He felt an awful sort of ache in his chest that wasn't connected with his injuries. For what seemed like hours, he wandered his mind palace, trying to figure out the problem. Eventually, the answer came creeping in before him. He'd lost his purpose. He was a warrior without a weapon, trapped inside a broken body and tied to a hospital bed. What use was he now? He couldn't be the only thing he knew how to be.

"You all right there, mate?" the man in the bed to his left asked. He was a short, blond fellow in his mid twenties with a sturdy build and a heavily bandaged left shoulder, a bullet wound most likely. Sherlock slowly turned his head to stare at him. "Captain John Watson. I, er, I pulled you from your Spitfire, or at least what was left of it."

"You need not concern yourself with me any further. You've done enough," Sherlock replied coolly, but Watson persisted.

"Listen, I know you don't want to talk to me and things are probably pretty hard for you right now, but I just want to tell you that I know what happened and I want to help if I can. Say the word and I'm there." This fully grabbed Sherlock's attention. This man was different.

"Thank...you." He didn't really know what else to say.

* * *

Things weren't exactly the way Molly had expected them to be after Sherlock woke for the first time since his crash. He was healing up just fine, but he always seemed to have a shadow hanging over him that definitely had not been there when they'd first met. He didn't like talking much and he tended to be unnecessarily terse with people who tried to make small talk with him. He seemed to remember who she was, which was nice, but he didn't appear to care very much about it and so she didn't dare approach the topic with him. To show him that he was more to her than just another patient, she brought him books and periodicals and even stayed past her shift a couple of times to read to him from the books which were too large and heavy for him to hold in his current state. He seemed to appreciate it, but she had no way of knowing that for certain. The sweet young man she'd encounter all those months ago was almost gone, and yet she still loved him, even when he was rude to her. The way his beautiful eyes, so full of intelligence, would scan everything around him in curiosity and how his snide remarks about the things she read to him made her laugh only made his place in her heart grow.

At the same time, he would often break her heart, not because of anything off colour that fell from his tongue, but because of the way he looked when he thought no one was watching. Sometimes when Molly came in to start her shift in the morning, she would peek through the glass in the door of the ward and see him lying awake in his bed, a look of deep depression on his sallow features. The moment she opened the door, he would school his face into an unreadable mask and it made her want to hold him and cry. She didn't dare bring up what she had seen with him. It was doubtful that he would ever want to discuss it. However, she was forced to mention it when his health began to worsen.

Sherlock's was soon starting to refuse food and sleeping less and less. It was frightening Molly, especially when he stopped being interested in the books she brought for him. He would just lie there, looking like a ghost. Eventually, he wouldn't even talk to her more than was absolutely necessary.

"Sir, you really must eat something or we'll have to force feed you," she informed him after what must have been the sixth time he'd turned away from a tray she had offered.

"You might as well. I haven't the stomach for that slop on my own," he replied sharply without even turning his head back to look at her as he spoke.

"Why?" Molly could see in the twitch of Sherlock's thick eyebrows that he had not expected this question.

"I seem to have lost the energy for it." It was pretty clear to her that he wasn't talking about physical energy, although she did imagine that he was lacking plenty of that these days.

"Group captain...please tell me what's wrong."

"I just did."

"No, I don't just mean about your absence of appetite. I've seen you when you think no one is watching. Something is plaguing you and I need you to tell me what it is so that I can help you." Molly reached out and smoothed Sherlock's hair, trying to turn the short, dark mess into something that more resembled the way that he had looked when they had first met.

"I sincerely doubt that there is anything you can do to help me, unless you've got a miracle cure and the name of the man who shot me down hidden somewhere under your dress," he responded testily, closing his eyes at the feeling of Molly carding her fingers through his hair. She could tell that he was going to get very nasty, very quickly if she continued to press him, but she had a duty as his nurse and the woman who loved him to help him.

"You're feeling useless, aren't you?" That question grabbed the pilot's attention. "I know bit about what that's like."

"Really? I never knew you were drafted, turned into a killing machine, and sent to hell to be shot down and then dragged, barely alive, back to some hospital to eek out a miserable existence chained to a poor excuse for a bed. All that and you're working now. You are a remarkable woman, Nurse Hooper. You must truly understand my position." Sherlock's words were utterly dripping with sarcasm and Molly couldn't help but be a little hurt at the way he was sneering at her. Nevertheless, her natural sympathy got the better of her since she knew that he was only doing this because she'd touched an emotional sore spot. He'd told her rather a lot about what he was feeling in his anger and was probably deeply regretting ever opening his mouth right about now, so she simply placed her hand gently over his heart to let him know that she wasn't upset and still wanted to help him. She remained silent, knowing that he would be feeling the need to do some deep thinking, and continued on with her duties quietly.

Molly stayed for Sherlock long after her shift was over that night, longer than she ever had before. She was determined to see him sleep. Once he did that, she could feel assured that he might get better. Unfortunately, he was having a tough go of it, even though the ward was dark and the on duty nurses only came in every so often to check up on their patients, so there was no noise to really bother him. She started to read him _Treasure Island_ and for the first time in days, it actually seemed like he was listening. Who knew that it would only take a bit of fiction to pique his interest?

Not that far along, Molly vaguely registered the sound of the door to the ward opening. She assumed that it was just a nurse, so she didn't even pause in her reading. As such, she was not prepared for when the privacy curtains surrounding Sherlock's bed were pulled back and a darkly clad figure bore down upon the prone pilot. Molly caught the gleam of a knife in the dim light and jumped up to defend her patient, grabbing the assailant's wrist and throwing the book in their face before aiming her knee at their groin. They jumped back, wrenching themselves from her grasp to make a wide swipe with their knife, poorly aimed due to their still recovering from a heavy book to the face. Molly cried out at the blade slashing her upper arm, but she kept her protective stance over Sherlock's bed. By now, it was clear that the attacker was a muscular man, but his face was almost entirely covered in shadow. All Molly could see clearly of him was a cold blue eye and a long, thin scar.

"I will not let you touch him," Molly growled and the assassin gave no verbal response, only lunging for Sherlock once again. He tried to shove the young nurse aside, but she nimbly reached around and pinched the back of his neck as hard as she could, her fingernails digging into his flesh. He yowled in pain and swung his knife at her once more, but she knocked it from his grasp. Angrily, he closed both of his calloused hands around Molly's neck and attempted to choke her. She could not call out and she was not strong enough to pry his fingers from her throat.

"HELP! HELP!" Sherlock suddenly shouted at the top of his lungs and the attacker threw Molly against the wall before he bolted from the ward. A moment later, all the lights came on and multiple hospital staff members burst into the ward. Many of the other patients looked disgruntled, confused, and/or afraid and most of the medical personnel dispersed to address their concerns. "Ms. Hooper..." There was a thin layer of detectable anxiety in Sherlock's voice as he moved himself as best as he could to try and look at the nurse. She was sprawled on the floor and so he probably could only see part of her. A fellow nurse helped her to her feet before she shook her off.

"I'm fine. I'm fine," she insisted.

"You're bleeding profusely," Sherlock remarked, sounding rather urgent. The other nurse's eyes went wide with alarm and she guided Molly into the chair beside the bed.

"That's going to need stitches. I'll be right back." This gave Molly a moment with Sherlock.

"Are you alright?" she asked and she was met with an expression that plainly convey that he couldn't believe she was more concerned about him when she was the one with the gaping wound.

"Don't worry about me. I'm unharmed. You suffered injury on my behalf, which is what's worth discussing."

"Group Captain Holmes, I-"

"Sherlock. Please," the pilot corrected, stunning Molly into silence. Before she could come up with a suitable response, the other nurse was back with the necessary items for making stitches. As Molly sat there getting her arm sewn up, she listened to Sherlock give his account of what had happened to someone else. She noticed him occasionally stealing glances at her, as if he was checking to make sure that she was still there. It quickly occurred to Molly that their relationship had changed in some small way. He wanted her to call him by his given name and he looked at her differently now. That thought made her heart flutter.

"Why did someone sneak in here and try to kill you?" she asked him once the other staff members stopped fussing and went back to their stations.

"Whoever tried to shoot me down knows that I'm alive and wants to finish the job. Obviously he did not anticipate that you would be here to protect me." The ghost of a smile played across his full lips at that last sentence and Molly blushed, looking down at her lap.

"I was just doing my duty," she murmured.

"Long past the end of your shift," Sherlock added, his icy eyes glittering with what she could only assume was gratitude. Before she could give another modest reply, something caught her attention at the corner of her vision. It was the knife lying partially concealed under the bed. She picked it up and examined it, finding the letters 'S.M.' carved into the wooden handle.

"Sherlock-"

"Quickly! Hide it under the mattress!" Sherlock hissed and Molly hastily obeyed, knowing as she did so that she was bound to this man now by her involvement in his danger and secrets. The pain of her stitched up arm was nothing compared to the thrill of that realization.

* * *

Things between Molly and her patient changed more than she had anticipated. After that night, he was much warmer with her and he even properly smiled at her again. His health improved a great deal. He began to eat and sleep unaided and would eagerly engage Molly in conversation. It was like he had bounced back from whatever low he had been experiencing before. When Mary Morstan found out that he and Molly were on a first name basis, she grinned and wiggled her eyebrows suggestively, reminding Molly of that underlying desire she had to be Sherlock's wife, but the time for exploring those thoughts wasn't right. If she was honest, she wasn't sure the time would ever be right. She found out for certain his feelings on relationships during one of his brighter afternoons following the attempted murder.

"I know your family are very busy people, so I can see why they'd not come visit you, but haven't you got dear friends or a lovely wife?" Molly asked after Sherlock had backhandedly thanked her for spending so much extra time with him. He quirked his dark eyebrows at her in bewilderment.

"You think someone like me would have a wife?"

"Why not? You're brilliant and handsome and you walk around in an RAF officer's uniform. One would think that such a combination would be something like a siren call."

"Women tend to flock away from me once they've actually met me. Besides, what they think hardly matters if I...if I don't...feel that urge..." Sherlock seemed to be struggling to define himself, but Molly understood. A friend of hers in school had been much the same way.

"Oh! I'm sorry. I should have realized. That's perfectly alright."

"You don't think there's anything medically wrong with me?" There was definitely astonishment in that question and Molly gave him one of her warm smiles.

"Of course not." The look he fixed her with then was like he saw some majestic unicorn before him. To others, his appreciation would be undetectable, but she had learnt to read the tiniest changes in his expression and she could see in the way he appeared to light up, his eyes widening ever so slightly, that he was surprised and overjoyed by her words. She would have blushed if she had thought it meant anything for her. Now she knew that it was unlikely that he'd ever want to marry her. It would be better for the both of them if she moved on.

"You're a singular woman, Molly Hooper," Sherlock told her and despite the high praise, her heart ached. Maybe getting over him wasn't going to happen. She was too in love.


End file.
